"We did actually get a lot of cancellations as a result of The New York Times article. It probably affected us to the tune of tens of millions, to the order of $100 million, so it's not trivial,” Elon Musk, the chief executive, said on Monday.

“I would say that refers more to the valuation of the company. It wasn't as though there were 1,000 cancellations just due to The New York Times article. There were probably a few hundred."

"The thing I really thought was wrong is that we are looking at the data from the test drive and it does not correlate at all to the article that was written,” Musk added in the Bloomberg TV interview.

“The result was that the car ran out of range. There was this sad shot of our car on a flatbed as though that was the only outcome possible for such a drive and that's just not true. And lots of people said that it does not matter if you're right or wrong, you do not battle the New York Times. To hell with that. I would rather tell the truth and suffer the consequences even if they are negative. I do not think it should be the end of his career or that he should be fired, but I do think that he fudged an article."

For what it's worth, Dan Edmunds, the head of vehicle testing for the car reviews site Edmunds—is also having trouble with the Model S' on-board touchscreen.

Promoted Comments

Also "for what it's worth", thousands of customers are also enjoying their car immensely.

Plus, Road & Track with their Model S article today: http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-reviews ... la-model-s "Beautiful, well-crafted, cool, and seriously fast, the Model S isn't just the most important car of the year. It's the most important car America has made in an entire lifetime."

This article really should have included the findings of the NYT Public Editor. His view was that the reporter definitely made some questionable decisions during the course of the review, but didn't deliberately "fudge" the result.

Actually, I think one of the biggest problems I had, and one that would put me off ever getting one, was the massive privacy WTF Elon Musk presented to try and counter the NYT

Doesn't matter how good the car is, I'll not have a little black blox telling everyone everything I do day in day out in MY car.

I'll make my own car first!

These cars were equipped with special logging equipment to counter articles just like NYT after things like some British TV show fudging the car dying in the middle of a test. I don't think the retail versions have this extensive logging data.

Also, I was certain most modern cars had black boxes these days, but required physical access to them, which Tesla would have after lending cars to reviewers.

I'm pretty sure they're standard in every one of them. And Top gear never mentioned the climate control, so it's odd they logged it. And also odd that the one thing that became contentious afterwards, was the 'back and forth in the parking lot' would have been solved with the GPS, which mysteriously wasn't on. Or more likely was on, but wasn't going to backup Musk's claims. Most cars with built-in nav systems have the gps always on (often makes it easier to get a fix)

And a lot of cars have black boxes, but they're mainly aftermarket. for fleet vehicles, or an optional extra (see the Mass. Lt Gov incident in that link) the NHTSA has thought about making them mandatory, but hasn't yet.

I'll stick with my late 80s/early 90s cars regardless though.

And it's funny you call it 'some british show', as it's one of the most successful BBC shows ever, commercially as well as viewer-wise. (DISCLOSURE: I was in the penultimate round of applicants for May's job, when it was recast after season1. I didn't have enough media experience for them, and was a bit younger than they were looking for though).

My husband and I rent a car every time we go on long road trips. You don't have to buy a car you will only use twice a year.

You only leave LA County twice a year?

Quote:

Admittedly, it would be nice if the $50k+ Tesla you bought for your daily commute were up to the task, but it's not a show-stopper.

There are plenty of rational arguments for why it isn't a show-stopper, but from the irrational consumer perspective, aren't long trips exactly when you want a nice, fast car like a Tesla? I mean, maybe I just have the wrong idea, but for sitting in LA traffic I may as well be driving a Prius, why would I need a Tesla?

Good for Elon Musk. Of course you can do battle with the New York Times. They have an agenda (hidden or otherwise) just like every other large news entity. I put the NYT right up there with FOX and CBS. They all have advertisers and investors and political motivations. Sad, but you can actually trust what you see and hear on TMZ more so than the so called main stream respected news organizations, be it in print or televised. How do I know this? 42 years in the business. I'm still trying to wash the dirt off me. haha.

This article really should have included the findings of the NYT Public Editor. His view was that the reporter definitely made some questionable decisions during the course of the review, but didn't deliberately "fudge" the result.

It's hard to make a judgement on that either way.

There were factual inaccuracies in the article, relating to speeds and time spent charging the car. Whether those inaccuracies were intentional or not is something only the author will ever know.

If the NYT reporter had accurately reported on his experience, and noted that the car's 300 mile range drops to 180 in the cold, it would have been a story. Nobody would have been worried that he didn't fully charge the car or that he was travelling at normal highway speeds. Instead, he explicitly stated that he fully charged the car and drove at a snail's pace... these statements were demonstrably wrong, and tainted the whole story.

I think full electric cars won't work until there's infrastructure everywhere you can possibly drive to support them.

Until then, the Chevy Volt style is probably the best way to go.

Not only that, I'm assuming a large part of the reason that you would buy one of these would be environmental but, at least in Pennsylvania, getting an electric car would mean going from a gas-powered car to one that's, essentially, coal powered. In fact, I think a number of states use coal to generate electricity.

Also, as the NYT mentioned, electric cars don't like the cold very much. At least, that's what I hear from the gear-heads my father hangs out with.

Electric cars are a neat idea but they require an infrastructure that just isn't there at this point.

And it's funny you call it 'some british show', as it's one of the most successful BBC shows ever, commercially as well as viewer-wise. (DISCLOSURE: I was in the penultimate round of applicants for May's job, when it was recast after season1. I didn't have enough media experience for them, and was a bit younger than they were looking for though).

I literally don't watch TV anymore, except for when things like the Top Gear (thank you for refreshing my memory on the name) incident are mentioned. I don't mean anything by it other than "I don't watch TV and don't remember the name of the show"

There are plenty of rational arguments for why it isn't a show-stopper, but from the irrational consumer perspective, aren't long trips exactly when you want a nice, fast car like a Tesla? I mean, maybe I just have the wrong idea, but for sitting in LA traffic I may as well be driving a Prius, why would I need a Tesla?

This is exactly the logic my parents used when I was a boy. Every car had to be able to "tow a caravan (travel trailer) at highway speeds". Just in case they decided to go on a trip. Those trips usually only happened once every two to three years, but Dad drove an inefficient car every day, just in case they felt the urge to drive to the other side of Australia on a whim.

Cars are all about freedom and flexibility for most people. 95% of the usage of the car might be in traffic during the daily commute, but it is the long trips and adventures that people think of when they purchase one.

Electric cars only work for people with specific needs. You need to have 'another' car so that you have the POTENTIAL for longer trips still. This is the issue..

...

Well, not really. I don't own an electric, and don't expect to in the next half decade - until price goes down and range goes up.

But, when I had to drive halfway across the continent last winter, it was simpler and damn-near cheaper to rent from National than it was to use my own ride - an '04 Dakota. I figure that it cost about an extra 80 bucks total, (thanks to much better milage) was essentially risk free from mechanical failure. that was about 10 bucks a day in extra expense for rental plus gas vs gas only, and saved me the cost of an extra oil change which drivingmy vehiclewould have entailed.

Give the rarity of cross country trips, renting a vehicle for that makes a lot of sense. Just like renting an RV vs owning one that stays parked 51 weeks out of the year.

Doesn't matter how good the car is, I'll not have a little black blox telling everyone everything I do day in day out in MY car.

The car used in the review was a Tesla owned car they lent for a review. They won't be tracking you if you actually buy one from them. Most of the logs weren't even transmitted in realtime, they had to download them after the fact. That's not any more invasive to your privacy than any other modern luxury car. You do realize they are all logging your travel and locations too, don't you?

I call bullshit several times over. It is perfectly acceptable in a review to talk about a fictional scenario of product use and how, based on the usage you've experienced, you believe the product might perform.

So... do you not know the actual background to the story? This wasn't an issue of the reviewer coming up with a fictional scenario of what might happen. The guy ran out of juice several miles away from the next Supercharger, and wrote extensively about his attempts to extend the range enough to get him there. This would be a rather killer downside to your vehicle and charging network if they don't live up to expectations and leave you stranded in sub-freezing temperatures.

But, oops, the reviewer neglected to note that he only charged it to 73% before it died on him the next day. Does one REALLY need to point out the scenario that if you don't actually fill up the "tank", the odds of you getting the full estimated range of the car drops to near zero? It would also help for the reviewer to note that he didn't charge it up all the way, or even close to it. But he didn't.

There's a difference between coming up with scenarios based on real events, and screwing yourself over because you're an idiot, yet when you write about it, neglect to point out how you were an idiot.

I think full electric cars won't work until there's infrastructure everywhere you can possibly drive to support them.

Until then, the Chevy Volt style is probably the best way to go.

I dont know about that... for me my average commute is around 25-30miles per day. I would LOVE to have a full electric car if it was affordable.

This.

My drive to work is just 4 miles. No freeways. (No coincidence... I moved-in close to where I work. Try it.) I could drive an electric car and charge it just once a week. Both of us already have relatively new cars and they are paid for. If they break, or get wrecked, we'll seriously look at getting a small electric car.

I love how Musk is crying foul while radically changing his story. He accused the reporter of <i>faking the part about how the car shut down</i>. Which was completely nuts. The car shut down. It needed to be towed.

He's now saying "There was this sad shot of our car on a flatbed as though that was the only outcome possible for such a drive and that's just not true." As if the Times was obligated to report the optimal outcome instead of, you know, the one that occurred.

How much of that 100m in alleged valuation plunge was because he couldn't say, "Wow, you had a bad experience. We'll learn from this. Can we try you again in six months with updated software?"

Doesn't matter how good the car is, I'll not have a little black blox telling everyone everything I do day in day out in MY car.

The car used in the review was a Tesla owned car they lent for a review. They won't be tracking you if you actually buy one from them. Most of the logs weren't even transmitted in realtime, they had to download them after the fact. That's not any more invasive to your privacy than any other modern luxury car. You do realize they are all logging your travel and locations too, don't you?

You notice above where I said I don't have a modern car for that reason? I'm borrowing a friends 2000 Saturn SL right now, while I redo a lot of mechanical stuff on a 89 toyota pickup. And I know exactly what the saturn can and can't log. And if you read my link, you'll note this line

The article at ktetch.co.uk wrote:

There is an easy way to handle it that does what the NHTSA wants, but doesn’t compromise privacy.

A rolling 30second log.

Even at 80mph, that is less than a mile of data, and would help with accident investigations. Yet it wouldn’t tell you anything except the actions leading up to the accident. Heck, I’ll even go further. A rolling 30second recording, BUT when an accident trigger (say the airbags or pre-tensioners) is set off, it continues recording for another 90 seconds. This will show who did what after the incident. Did he try and drive off? Were the seatbelts fastened before or after?

It’ll handle the information the NHTSA wants, and keep drivers honest in their accident reports, while respecting their privacy, and not allowing yet another back door for privacy abuse and tracking.

I've seen more accidents than I want to. I even started training as an accident investigator. I know what's useful, and what's not. 2 days of logs are not useful, the 2 minutes around an accident are.

I also said that in some situations it's acceptable, like a commercial driver and tachographs, and emergency vehicles (because of their ability to to circumvent standard traffic law at times) But private cars are not an area i find this stuff to be acceptable.

I think full electric cars won't work until there's infrastructure everywhere you can possibly drive to support them.

Until then, the Chevy Volt style is probably the best way to go.

I dont know about that... for me my average commute is around 25-30miles per day. I would LOVE to have a full electric car if it was affordable.

This.

My drive to work is just 4 miles. No freeways. (No coincidence... I moved-in close to where I work. Try it.) I could drive an electric car and charge it just once a week. Both of us already have relatively new cars and they are paid for. If they break, or get wrecked, we'll seriously look at getting a small electric car.

For this I wish Smart made one. With a small pack that had no more than 50 miles of range.

My drive to work is just 4 miles. No freeways. (No coincidence... I moved-in close to where I work. Try it.) I could drive an electric car and charge it just once a week. Both of us already have relatively new cars and they are paid for. If they break, or get wrecked, we'll seriously look at getting a small electric car.

Electric cars only work for people with specific needs. You need to have 'another' car so that you have the POTENTIAL for longer trips still. This is the issue..

So drive electric for 99% of the time, and rent a gas car for long trips. Or better yet, plane/train/bus.

GuyClinch wrote:

It's the same reason many people buy big SUVs and pickups even though a Fiesta would suit them just fine.. Potential matters..

It shouldn't. Again, driving a small car and then renting a truck when needed would make much more sense. Back when gas was under a buck a gallon, it wasn't such a big deal to buy more capacity than you need. Now with basically permanent $4/gallon, attitudes are shifting, albeit slowly.

Of course potential matters, as well it should for what likely amounts to a long-term purchase for most. Likewise, a blanket statement such as what one should do with regard to buy vs. rent is essentially baseless without any other context considered or provided.

What's that? Most of your interaction with your computer at home is light web browsing? Then you should just buy a tablet and rent a high-end workstation/gaming pc for the odd times when you want to do any content creation/gaming.

I think full electric cars won't work until there's infrastructure everywhere you can possibly drive to support them.

Until then, the Chevy Volt style is probably the best way to go.

I dont know about that... for me my average commute is around 25-30miles per day. I would LOVE to have a full electric car if it was affordable.

That's all fine and good but who spends their entire car life 100% for commuting? By that I mean what if you want to go on a weekend trip? Vacation? See a relative? Go somewhere on the holidays? Are people supposed to have a second car for any trip over 150 miles? Rent one?

I live in LA and a very popular long drive is to Vegas. 4-5 hours. And though it appears to be possible to do in a Tesla, you probably wouldn't want to do it. Unless driving 58MPH when the speed limit is 65-70 and the avg speed is 75+ MPH seems pleasant to you.

And from that review, you probably would have a hard time even making it to San Diego or Santa Barbara without stopping to charge. And basically add at least 1 hour to your trip (time it takes to use the fast charger). Compare that to the 5-10 minutes it takes to fill up a gas tank.

I like the Tesla. But if I'm going to spend 100k on a car, it should be able to do everything a car is expected to do, which includes a 300+mile range.

Anyway, if the only thing you ever do is drive back and forth to work, you can get a Nissan Leaf. Those are affordable. But don't expect to ever go more than 50 miles from you home.

Electric cars only work for people with specific needs. You need to have 'another' car so that you have the POTENTIAL for longer trips still. This is the issue.. <snip>

This reminded me of a bit from When Harry Met Sally, re the "potential" of not being married w/kids (had to google the actual quote):

Sally: ...and we'd say we were so lucky we have this wonderful relationship, we can have sex on the kitchen floor and not worry about the kids walking in. We can fly off to Rome on a moment's notice... The thing is, we never do fly off to Rome on a moment's notice.

Harry: And the kitchen floor?

Sally: Not once. It's this very cold, hard Mexican ceramic tile.

People are fascinated with "potential". I wonder how many realize a significant % of it?

As many others have pointed out, why not rent a car for longer trips? I have a perfectly serviceable Honda Accord V6 w/reasonable gas mileage, but I've rented a car for a few long trips to save on wear & tear (and better gas mileage still w/a 4-cyl rental). No big deal and even makes financial sense, so why not w/an electric?

For normal use, my commute is 10 miles one-way (planned--I'll always move before dealing with a 30min+ commute for too long). My semi-frequent trips to friends & local areas of interest are all within a 30 mile radius (again, more or less planned). I'm willing to bet there are a lot of people in similar circumstances. If you're not, more power to you avoiding electric cars, but I personally would love an electric or gas-electric hybrid, and will seriously consider one after I drive my current car into the ground. Too bad (mixed blessing?) those Accords last forever...

So you want to write an article on the Tesla Model S that you hope people will read and not just skip over. Your choices are A) to write the same article everyone else has written at this point ("I drove a Tesla and everything went fine. I didn't have any of the problems I was fearing I would.") or B) do whatever you can to put the car through hell and attempt to make something go wrong so that you can write about that instead of article A, which do you choose? It's not like this NYT journalist is the first to do this sort of thing. In an industry of people trying hard to make a name for themselves writing "me too" articles does not make one stand out.

bwake wrote:

Electric cars don't like the heat either. There are too many reports that the Nissan Leaf battery pack loses capacity more quickly in extreme high temperatures, such as in Arizona.

This was because the Leaf had an air-cooled battery which any moron should have known was going to die in Arizona. Cheap electric cars don't have a lot of choice when it comes to that kind of thing though. The Teslas and Fiskers of the world can put expensive cooling systems into their batteries because the cost of those cars easily covers it. I don't expect a cheap mainstream electric vehicle to be working in all extremes for awhile yet.

This article really should have included the findings of the NYT Public Editor. His view was that the reporter definitely made some questionable decisions during the course of the review, but didn't deliberately "fudge" the result.

He didn't deliberately fudge anything, but it was his intention to run the car out of juice so he could get the moneyshot of the car on a flatbed, and that's what he did.

I love how Musk is crying foul while radically changing his story. He accused the reporter of <i>faking the part about how the car shut down</i>. Which was completely nuts. The car shut down. It needed to be towed.

He's now saying "There was this sad shot of our car on a flatbed as though that was the only outcome possible for such a drive and that's just not true." As if the Times was obligated to report the optimal outcome instead of, you know, the one that occurred.

How much of that 100m in alleged valuation plunge was because he couldn't say, "Wow, you had a bad experience. We'll learn from this. Can we try you again in six months with updated software?"

The fault was in the software between the reporter's ears. He didn't charge it all the way.

If you strand yourself by driving off in an ICE car with only half the fuel you need to reach your destination you have only yourself to blame.

If you then write a scathing article about how the car is junk, you deserve what you get.

People are fascinated with "potential". I wonder how many realize a significant % of it?

People spend huge money on things with lots of "potential" that they'll probably never get get the most out of. It's a fact of life in the first world. Cars, exercise equipment, cameras, computers, GUNS. Never mind boats, mansions, mistresses, the list goes on and on...People like having "potential" in life. Your most prized "potentials" might just be different from people who like the idea of hopping in the car on Friday night and driving from LA (sorry, SD) to Vegas or even just doing a round trip to a White Castle more than 90 miles away in the wintertime...

Quote:

As many others have pointed out, why not rent a car for longer trips? I have a perfectly serviceable Honda Accord V6 w/reasonable gas mileage, but I've rented a car for a few long trips to save on wear & tear (and better gas mileage still w/a 4-cyl rental). No big deal and even makes financial sense, so why not w/an electric?

Maybe that's because you drive a "serviceable" Honda Accord. Or maybe you drive an Accord because you're fairly rational about car ownership...

Anyway, I know if I had a Tesla, I'd sure want to be able to drive it on my Vegas weekend trips, rationality be damned!

What's that? Most of your interaction with your computer at home is light web browsing? Then you should just buy a tablet and rent a high-end workstation/gaming pc for the odd times when you want to do any content creation/gaming.

If serious gaming rigs cost $30K, I might well do that. Fortunately, I can build a reasonable one for under $1500, so yeah, I actually have a gaming rig to... well, game on, and a tablet for light surfing and video playing. I'm not saying the electricity savings are going to pay for my tablet anytime soon, but why fire up my main rig, giant monitor, etc when all I want to do is stream Youtube?

Of course owning two cars isn't reasonable for many people, but fortunately there's a highly functional and rather convenient infrastructure of car rentals in most population areas. If you don't live in such an area, you're likely not a fit for an electric car, but for many of us, It takes almost no effort to drive to a nearby rental agency w/a short range vehicle to "swap out" for a long range car. If you do this on a weekly basis or more, yeah, prolly not worth your time, but how many people take 100+ mile trips that often? What, lots? Okay, those people should buy electric cars either. I'm thinking a whole lot more drive far less than that a day w/few exceptions.

Yes, the UI occasionally locks up, just like PCs, Macs, phones, and tablets. All you have to do is press two buttons on the steering wheel for a few seconds, and it re-starts. Not ideal, but it's a better recovery than any PC, phone, or tablet I have used, and when it does happen, it doesn't affect the operation of the vehicle (i.e, you can still drive it).

Considering so many aspects of modern cars are computer controlled, even if the UI doesn't affect anything, it still doesn't evoke a lot of confidence in the stability of the other systems. The expectation in a car is that things just work.

I can't think of the last time one of my Win 7/8 machines locked up, how often do you think it's acceptable for a computer or phone to lock up?

I have noticed that none of these 'electric car goes flat' kerfuffles seem to have an unedited video of the entire event available. Seems a bit odd: "I'm going on a drive of uncertain outcome, deliberately designed to test the limit of the system. Let's have zero documentation of what happens so it can turn into a I-say they-say shitfest!"

Why are so many people obsessed with a technology that isn't yet ready for prime time? I have no idea whether it ever will be or not. I don't have an opinion about it, and I don't really care. I want whatever vehicle can get me to the places I want to go with the least hassle and the lowest cost for the level of comfort I want. Electric cars are currently far too expensive and the technology doesn't exist to quickly refuel in the way that we currently stop as a gas station.

So for economic reasons and technical reasons, an electric car is nothing but an interesting novelty at this point. It's fairly insane to buy one. (And people who buy one for environmental reasons don't seem to remember that the electricity that powers it is coming from some other source, frequently coal-fired plants.)

If an electric car one day exists that is quick to refuel AND is economical to buy and drive AND an infrastructure is in place, I'll be happy to compare it to other choices. At this point, though, it's silly to see it as a legitimate alternative to comparably priced gasoline-powered cars.

Actually, I think one of the biggest problems I had, and one that would put me off ever getting one, was the massive privacy WTF Elon Musk presented to try and counter the NYT

Doesn't matter how good the car is, I'll not have a little black blox telling everyone everything I do day in day out in MY car.

I'll make my own car first!

These cars were equipped with special logging equipment to counter articles just like NYT after things like some British TV show fudging the car dying in the middle of a test. I don't think the retail versions have this extensive logging data.

Also, I was certain most modern cars had black boxes these days, but required physical access to them, which Tesla would have after lending cars to reviewers.

Thing is, Tesla isn't the only company Top Gear has panned. They've done it to LOTS of cars - notably Vauxhall (they've been ripping on the Vectra for over a decade - the last time just over a week ago) and yet no-one else feels the need to litigate like Tesla (and Tesla LOST).

My point was more on the dump of data Tesla did without a second though (it seemed), albeit selective (again, GPS data ommision is a big question mark - especially for this very purpose). And physical access isn't so much of a problem. Remember there are now devices cops can use to make complete data dumps of your phones require physical access, but is widely and easily available, when access only has to be for a few moments. You know:Traffic stop:Mind if we search the car (then stupidly consent to a search) and plug+dump.

It's much harder to do that if the data isn't recorded in the first place. If you're going to do it, then it'd better be a separate unit wired in, not something integrated where the difference between it being on, and off is 'a switch'

Are people supposed to have a second car for any trip over 150 miles? Rent one?

Well the average household owns 2.28 vehicles, so, yes. In fact, there are more households with 3 vehicles than just one or two.

Sure, if you're single, having more than one vehicle certainly is a waste. But there's nothing stopping a family from owning more than one vehicle, each with their own strengths. My wife owns an SUV. Works great for getting large amounts of stuff moved around. We're even thinking of getting a trailer hitch installed to allow it to tow stuff. I'm looking to buy a new car in the next few weeks. I'll probably go with a CR-Z, a two seat hybrid that would be pretty impractical for moving a lot of stuff around, but will be excellent for trips around town, and even better for when the two of us visit her sister across the state, and we can do so on half a tank of gas, rather than her filling up her SUV twice during the trip.

And it's funny you call it 'some british show', as it's one of the most successful BBC shows ever, commercially as well as viewer-wise. (DISCLOSURE: I was in the penultimate round of applicants for May's job, when it was recast after season1. I didn't have enough media experience for them, and was a bit younger than they were looking for though).

I literally don't watch TV anymore, except for when things like the Top Gear (thank you for refreshing my memory on the name) incident are mentioned. I don't mean anything by it other than "I don't watch TV and don't remember the name of the show"

I love how Musk is crying foul while radically changing his story. He accused the reporter of <i>faking the part about how the car shut down</i>. Which was completely nuts. The car shut down. It needed to be towed.

He's now saying "There was this sad shot of our car on a flatbed as though that was the only outcome possible for such a drive and that's just not true." As if the Times was obligated to report the optimal outcome instead of, you know, the one that occurred.

How much of that 100m in alleged valuation plunge was because he couldn't say, "Wow, you had a bad experience. We'll learn from this. Can we try you again in six months with updated software?"

Automotive blog, The Truth About Cars made the same point, but in a much more eloquent way. In their opinion, Elon Musk did more to damage Tesla's reputation than that NYT article could've, which recieved very little attention until Musk called John Broder a liar and accused him of driving it wrong. Tesla isn't the first car company to have a product get slammed by the press, and it won't be the last. Instead of getting defensive, he should've just taken his licks, acknowledge that the car does have some shortcomings, and kept it going.

Apparently, he failed to learn from GM's mistake when they went after Nader for his criticism of the Corvair.

Oh when will these media companies learn that when a company (like Tesla) gives you a product, that they expect a favorable review? Jeez. It's not that hard.

bwake wrote:

The fault was in the software between the reporter's ears. He didn't charge it all the way.

If you strand yourself by driving off in an ICE car with only half the fuel you need to reach your destination you have only yourself to blame.

It does not matter if the reporter charged it all the way or not; he still charged it.

If you take an electric vehicle for an outing, you may run into circumstances where you cannot charge it overnight. B&Bs and motels generally do not like you running an extention cable out the window to your car - much less in the middle of a major snow storm. That family cabin may only possess a 120V outlet - that's what - 18 hours to fully charge. These things happen. It's a copout for Tesla to say "you should have charged overnight"; sorry not always possible.

This could happen with an ICE, too. But at least filling stations are practically, everywhere. And refueling only takes 5 minutes. I can only image a Supercharging station - free electricity, but how much are the coffee and donuts?

Has anyone done a study of how much daily charging of the car adds to the average electric bill vs what a similar household spends on gas for a car of similar size and use? I know an electric car would likely be cheaper than my vehicle only because I'm driving a V8.

400 miles on one charge on average with various driving conditions (I normally drive 75 mph on freeways with the A/C on and the radio on...then plus the usual stop and go Houston traffic), 100% recharge in less than 15 minutes, massive infrastructure for charging and a vehicle sticker price of around 23k should make this electric car stuff way more attractive.